High order buckling analysis of composite sandwich cylinders

 In this paper, buckling analysis of composite sandwich cylinders with transverse flexible core is investigated using an improved higher order sandwich panel theory (IHSAPT). The face sheets of sandwich cylinder are made of laminate composite that lay up symmetric and anti-symmetric. The case study is under axial compression load and external pressure. The first order shear deformation theory and second Frostig’s model is proposed for deriving displacement field of face sheets and core, respectively. Lagrange’s principle considering initial stresses is used for extracting governing equations. The Buckling problem of the shell has been numerically solved by using the Galerkin’s method. In this research, the effects of some important parameters including core radius to cylinder thickness ratio, length to core thickness ratio, face sheet to cylinder thickness ratio and length to core radius ratio on the buckling response of composite sandwich cylinder are studied. The obtained results indicate that by decreasing face sheet to cylinder thickness ratio and length to core radius ratio, and increasing core radius to cylinder thickness ratio buckling load of composite sandwich cylinder are increased.